Argyll and Bute Council spends £75,000 on legal battle over plans for supermarket on waterfront

Argyll and Bute Council has spent nearly £75,000 on legal costs in its legal battle on Helensburgh’s Waterfront, information has revealed.

The local authority is involved in an ongoing dispute with Helensburgh Community Council on the decision-making process for the empty space in front of the town’s currently-closed leisure centre.

Now a freedom of information request by the Local Democracy Reporting Service has discovered that its legal bill was £74,172 as of Thursday, July 10.

Ten payments account for that total, three of them to Brodies LLP Solicitors amounting to a total of over £32,000. The remaining seven are to Faculty Services Ltd.

The highest of the 10 payments was for £14,400, which was paid to Faculty Services Ltd, which was paid on June 13. The highest payment to Brodies was £13,072 which was made on March 10.

Helensburgh Community Council ran a public appeal to pay its legal fees, which it was estimated could be as high as £30,000.

The case was heard in front of Hon Lord Elricht at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Friday, July 4, with Gilson Gray LLP representing the Community Council and Brodies representing Argyll and Bute Council.

The Community Council has questioned how the council arrived at the decision to build a supermarket on the Waterfront site, a decision which was made behind closed doors in August 2024.

Forrest Developments Ltd were named as the preferred bidder for the vacant site, with the proposal also allowing for single-storey retail units and a skatepark area.

A petition launched by the Community Council against the siting of a supermarket on the site has gathered over 4,000 signatures online as well as written ones.

It is not known when a decision on the case may be reached, but it will reportedly take “some time”. A Q&A page on Argyll and Bute Council’s website relating to the Waterfront has not been updated since November 2024.